POETRY
My Grandmother’s Garden and other poems
T BANKS-VITTINI
There was nothing I could do
watching Mary die. Beside her
I remained as quiet as the flowers
on the mantel, more useless
than my mother’s prayers.
Sometimes she comes
to visit. Once
a mantis perched gently
on the headboard
above me in the early
-
Government Rice and other poems
RADHA JYOTI NUR
Polymer sacks of government rice.
Father says, No rice, no meal.
Sacks stacked star-wards
& lit on fire in a warehouse
doored by uniforms. -
Lyrical Musing and other poems
JEROME MASAMAKA
Wet words
dripping
like
clots of
hot blood
on this dirty
page…
Mouldy thoughts
oozing out -
Lidgeun
CINDY SOLONEC
I am from the history that is hidden
Of stories long lost, that are being resurrected
For all Australians to savour
Of living in the bush
On a small station, waiting for visitors -
Rungutjirpa
GLEN HUNTING
Evening, and the cleft
in the range draws air
from russet plains,
to comb the walls, ruffle
the water beneath them. -
A Selective History of Horses and Winter Solstice in the Tropics
CHRYSTAL HO
The first horse I remember seeing was beheaded. After referring to a hand-me-down Chinese manuscript book, Mother became so perplexed by how the shape of a horse could become this altered
-
Enlightened beings of pāramī perfections
KO KO THETT
With dāna, giving of the self,
khanti, endurance, and
upekkhā, equanimity,
they have arrived at some place,
way beyond my grasp.
FROM THE VAULT
-
Self-colonialism
LUOYANG CHEN
Apply
me like you apply theory
Trample
me like you trample other ways of being
Annul
me like you annul laws
Modify
me like you modify language
Commodify
me like you commodify culture -
Queer Poetry: Engenderings, Endangerings
ADITI ANGIRAS & AKHIL KATYAL
Akhil Katyal: Can queer poetry be easily co-opted by those in power, effectively endangering its ‘queerness’, i.e. its capacity to be ‘odd’, to run against the grain of the social?
Aditi Angiras: It would no longer be queer and no longer be poetry, it would then just be propaganda. Queerness and poetry are slippery and free-flowing, like water swimming past your fingers whenever you try to hold it in a fist. -
Walking on ice
ISABELLA MOTADINYANE
When the house
thronged
with people
silence
aware of his presence
i read his words
from the thin
of his lips
“this poem is ‘bout to start”
walking on ice
he had a mind
to let go
but watched time
the unblinking eye